The Ghana Statistical Service (GSS), has rejected assertions that Ghana\u2019s consumer purchasing power is one of the lowest in Sub Saharan Africa.<\/p>\n
[contextly_sidebar id=”rvQsnJ25cXXY73RsZjZhV6hATmjP9lT6″]The Managing Director of Nielsen West Africa, Lampe Omoyele at an evening encounter with the Chartered Institute of Marketing Ghana, asserted that Ghana was one of four African countries with low consumer purchasing power.<\/p>\n
The figures released by Nielsen indicated that Uganda has the most affordable basket at 10.99 dollars while South Sudan had the highest at 38.60 dollars.<\/p>\n
The report however pegged a basket of goods in Ghana at 27.50 dollars.<\/p>\n
According to Mr. Omoyele, the development could also be blamed on the increasing inflation, cedi depreciation, high taxes among others.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen there is inflation and wages do not increase to correspond, then consumers\u2019 disposable income will decline. Ghana\u2019s inflation has increased significantly in the last 24 months from 14% to over 18% in 2016,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
He further pointed out that the country \u00a0has also faced some challenges such as commodity price increase, supply issues, and infrastructure issues while wages have not improved, resulting in weakened consumer purchasing power.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen that happens then consumers begin to rationalize. This means they don\u2019t have enough money to spend and they rationalize by doing away with some of the things they feel are not important,\u201d Lampe Omoyele added.<\/p>\n
Statistics unrepresentative<\/strong><\/p>\n But reacting to the assertions on the Citi Breakfast Show on Friday, the Director of Economics at the Ghana Statistical Service Asuo Afram intimated that the report was not reflective of all areas in the country.<\/p>\n Asuo Afram explained that the category of items used in the study was skewed towards the high income urban dwellers.<\/p>\n \u201cMost of the items used in the study are patronized by the urban dwellers and that is how come we intend to include in our next rebase we would like to include income level inflation so that those who live in the high income earning ranges,\u201d<\/p>\n Mr Afram was however optimistic that Ghana could have performed relatively better if figures were extended to cover a much more wider group of individuals,<\/p>\n \u201cThis is what happens especially when you take only a few items like that and also what we have the weighting the weight will be skewed towards the urban areas\u2026once you compare using the whole country\u2019s average, then you will be able to get a figure reflective of all citizens in the country,\u201d he noted.<\/p>\n Nielsen Africa report breakdown<\/strong><\/p>\n Uganda has the most affordable basket at 10.99 dollars, Lesotho follows with 14.70 dollars, Swaziland is next at 14.99 dollars and Kenya and South Africa are at 15.06 and 15.33 dollars respectively.<\/p>\n For the list of countries with the least affordable basket where Ghana falls in, South Sudan is the highest at 38.60 dollars, Angola is at number two with 33.57 dollars, DRC comes in at number three with 28.80 dollars, Ghana is at number four at 27.50 dollars followed by Cote D’Ivore with 24.55 dollars.<\/p>\n –<\/p>\n By: Norvan Acquah-Hayford\/citibusinessnews.com\/Ghana<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The Ghana Statistical Service (GSS), has rejected assertions that Ghana\u2019s consumer purchasing power is one of the lowest in Sub Saharan Africa. [contextly_sidebar id=”rvQsnJ25cXXY73RsZjZhV6hATmjP9lT6″]The Managing Director of Nielsen West Africa, Lampe Omoyele at an evening encounter with the Chartered Institute of Marketing Ghana, asserted that Ghana was one of four African countries with low consumer […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":14,"featured_media":223256,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[32,171,11],"tags":[],"yoast_head":"\n